You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
127 lines
5.1 KiB
127 lines
5.1 KiB
11 months ago
|
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
|
|
<html lang="en">
|
||
|
|
<head>
|
||
|
|
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
|
||
|
|
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!-- Enable responsiveness on mobile devices-->
|
||
|
|
<!-- viewport-fit=cover is to support iPhone X rounded corners and notch in landscape-->
|
||
|
|
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1, viewport-fit=cover">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<title>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</title>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!-- CSS -->
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/print.css" media="print">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/poole.css">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/hyde.css">
|
||
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans:400,400italic,700|Abril+Fatface">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</head>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<body class=" ">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="sidebar">
|
||
|
|
<div class="container sidebar-sticky">
|
||
|
|
<div class="sidebar-about">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me"><h1>Julio Biason .Me 4.3</h1></a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<p class="lead">Old school dev living in a 2.0 dev world</p>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<ul class="sidebar-nav">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/">English</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt">Português</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/tags">Tags (EN)</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<li class="sidebar-nav-item"><a href="/pt/tags">Tags (PT)</a></li>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</ul>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="content container">
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div class="post">
|
||
|
|
<h1 class="post-title">Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Documentation Is a Love Letter To Your Future Self</h1>
|
||
|
|
<span class="post-date">
|
||
|
|
2019-06-21
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/books/">#books</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/things-i-learnt/">#things i learnt</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<a href="https://blog.juliobiason.me/tags/documentation/">#documentation</a>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</span>
|
||
|
|
<p>We all know writing the damn docs for functions and classes and modules is a
|
||
|
|
pain in the backside. But realizing what you were thinking when you wrote the
|
||
|
|
function will save your butt in the future.</p>
|
||
|
|
<span id="continue-reading"></span>
|
||
|
|
<p>When I say that it will save your butt, I don't mean the documentation will
|
||
|
|
tell you something like "Here are the lotto numbers in 2027"<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#1">1</a></sup> or "If John
|
||
|
|
complains about your future code review, here is some shit he did in the
|
||
|
|
past".</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>I mean, it will explain how the <em>flow</em> of your code is expected to do. Imaging
|
||
|
|
this: pick your code and replace every function call to its documentation. Can
|
||
|
|
you understand what it is expected by reading that? If you can,
|
||
|
|
congratulations, you won't have a problem in the future; if you can't... well,
|
||
|
|
I have some bad news for you...</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>One point that may come here is "Code is its own documentation" or
|
||
|
|
"self-documenting code". I do understand, and yes, simpler functions may make
|
||
|
|
the documentation redundant (for example, if you notice that you need a
|
||
|
|
function that multiplies two numbers -- and only do that -- giving it a
|
||
|
|
description of "Multiples two numbers" may look redundant), but you have to
|
||
|
|
ask yourself <em>why</em> you needed such simple function. <em>Why</em> it exists? <em>Where</em>
|
||
|
|
it sits in the general data flow?</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>Another thing you can document: rarely used functions. One example is Java
|
||
|
|
Collectors: In Java, you can create a stream of data, which you can apply
|
||
|
|
transformations and such and, in the end, you may put the resulting collection
|
||
|
|
of data into another structure -- a list, for example. The thing is,
|
||
|
|
collecting to a list is pretty common, but collecting into a map, with a
|
||
|
|
function as key and another value as value, splitting the result into two
|
||
|
|
different data blocks, is not that common. Because it is uncommon to see such
|
||
|
|
collector, it is a good idea to add tips on what each option is.</p>
|
||
|
|
<p>That's the things you need to document.</p>
|
||
|
|
<div class="footnote-definition" id="1"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">1</sup>
|
||
|
|
<p>Please, don't make me revise this in 2027... :(</p>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
<div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div style="float:left">
|
||
|
|
<< <a href="/books/things-i-learnt/languages-tests">Good Languages Come With Tests</a>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<div style="float:right">
|
||
|
|
<a href="/books/things-i-learnt/document-is-contract">The Function Documentation Is Its Contract</a> >>
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</div>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</body>
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
</html>
|